Читать книгу No Money, No Beer, No Pennants. The Cleveland Indians and Baseball in the Great Depression онлайн

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Mrs. Dunn continued to make things exciting by acknowledging the Bradleys’ interest as well as that of two other mysterious syndicates. She cautioned that no other names would be mentioned, but that she preferred to sell the club to Cleveland buyers. It did not hurt that the Indians were playing good-quality baseball in September and showed some faint promise for the future.

On September 15, news broke that Alva Bradley was in serious negotiations to buy the Cleveland Indians. A price had been agreed upon, but the one sticking point was that Bradley wanted to buy out all the shareholders. He told Edwards, “We will not buy a share unless we can buy every dollar’s worth. We want no minority stockholders.” When Bradley made the statement, he already had an agreement with the three original partners of Jim Dunn: Pat McCarthy, Richard Lane, and vice president Tom Walsh. With the trio on board, the remaining minority holders would likely give up their shares.

Bradley mentioned in his interview that he wanted to give Cleveland a representative ball club and a modern stadium to go with it. Fans had heard the whispers about a huge new downtown stadium for several years. This was the first time the rumor had some real weight to it. Bradley mentioned a seating capacity of seventy-five thousand, more than two-and-one-half times the size of old League Park. Fans had to be excited by the news, realizing they would have a sporting chance to get tickets on weekends and when the Yankees came to town. When Ruth, Gehrig, and company were playing at League Park, tickets were extremely hard to come by.